The game I met my wife in she was playing a druid and I was a bard. The DM watched too much LOTRs and put down the smack with a Balor or whatever they are called. We somehow got the initiative (i think he was being nice) this was when we were level 3ish and I used ghost sound. The poor DM followed that up with double 1s rolled (His crit failure rule, we all had to roll in the middle of the table so everyone could see). My wife then followed it up with 3, 20s on her to hit (DMs rules for instant kill)... we gained a lot of levels that day.

Mulsiphix

01-19-2008, 02:20 AM

The DM watched too much LOTRs and put down the smack with a Balor or whatever they are called. That would be a Balrog

http://blog.wieczorek.com.br/media/blogs/pessoal/balrog.jpg

MortonStromgal

01-19-2008, 02:23 AM

Nope Balor
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/monstersDtoDe.html#balor-demon
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/underdark_gallery/Balor.jpg
;) I knew what Tolkien called them, I couldn't remember what D&D called them

Riftwalker

01-19-2008, 02:25 AM

As would this: :D

http://www.videogameradio.com/images/thumb/balrog.jpg

Mulsiphix

01-19-2008, 02:27 AM

Looks like the same thing to me, aesthetically at least. Where in LOTR was there a Balor?

Balrog was awesome in Street Fighter 2 :D

Drohem

01-19-2008, 03:32 AM

Where in LOTR was there a Balor?

It doesn't exist in Lord of the Rings. There was a Balrog in LotR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balrog

In Dungeons & Dragons, a Balor is a powerful type of demon from the Abyss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balor_%28Dungeons_%26_Dragons%29

MortonStromgal

01-19-2008, 03:40 AM

What he said, they look similar though thus my comment about the DM watching to much LOTRs because he chose to stick a Balor up against a 3rd level party.

I had a DM with a thing for Terrasques. He ran us up against one. We were playing some older characters, all fairly high level. It made paste of the local army guard sent to fight it. We put a Daerns Instant Fortress into an Otilukes Telekinetic Sphere, and then proceeded to whack the thing on the snout with it. It snapped at it, got it in it's mouth, and then we activated the fortress. Instant 100' Iron tower in it's mouth. Still didn't kill it, but it allowed us to finish it off.

upidstay

01-19-2008, 11:05 AM

A Balrog versus a 3rd level party? Did any of you make it to the 3rd round of combat?

nijineko

01-19-2008, 11:51 AM

check out this journal of one of my characters:

Excerpts from the Journals of Talaelowar Ki'yik (http://gametable.galactanet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=244)

and in other news, i once managed to defeat an adult blue dragon (almost) single-handedly. (i was certainly the only character in combat with the dragon!) here is an excerpt from that character's first adventure:

one of the first d&d adventures i ever played was B2:Keep on the Borderlands. i made up a fighter character, and with an 18:59 STR, i thought i was doing pretty well. he rolled lucky on the random psionic tables too, had a few powers on the side. As we are going along, he manages to find some full plate, sans helmet, and he has a decent sword to boot. we enter this one room, (a storeroom? a kitchen?) and he inspects some jars, only to be attacked by a giant centipede.

oh, i should probably mention that the dm had a house rule that whomever fought a monster got first pick of it's loot, if any. also whomever explored any give area, likewise got first pick. so this led to some interesting party dynamics. as in the theif did not always get to search a place first. hehehe.

i kept finding treasure i couldn't use! grrr. =( like the scrolls of fireball.... that prompted me to talk to the dm and request to multi-class into fighter-mage. which request he granted. ^^ (yea!) so the adventure progressed, we beat the ogre, cleared out some orcs, and the skeletons too i think. eventually, i was a 4/3 fighter-mage. hero/thaumaturge? and then it happened.

we find our way into a chapel lined with coffins and this nasty blood-covered alter. checking the coffins caused a nice "discussion" concerning treasure found, respect for the deceased, and alignment. ^^ fortunately, my oh so very lucky discovery of a wight in it's coffin of treasure, helped settle the argument. and the rest of the party even helped me out once the dm reminded them about the only-combatants-get-the-loot rule. cheh. i wound up carrying most of the treasure anyhow, due to my STR. at last i had finally found something i could use! too bad that the helmet i found in the wight's horde was a Cursed Helm of Alignment Change. poor former lawful-good fighter me.

the dm takes me aside and explains the situation to me. i reluctantly go along with it. it isn't long before my inept attempts at evil are met with outrage and threats from the rest of the party. finally, one of the party has had enough and actually attacks me. something to do with tossing a cruse of oil followed by a torch into the room where the thief was trying to search. on the thief. i'm surprised that they let me get away with as much as they did. anyhow i actually managed to do enough damage to the party that they were in fear of thier lives. they kept missing me. almost cleaved the cleric's arm off.... anyhow, someone finally manages to sneak up behind me and clobbers me, knocking me out. and blessed be whoever it was that made the connection between the helmet and my changed behavior, and checked it for magic.

so they take me back to the castle where a wandering sage (thanks, dm!) was able to cast remove curse. happy me, the helmet gave me the ability to levitate at will, silence up to 15' radius, adjustable, also at will, and up to 3 magic missles a day! =D unfortunately, the party deemed this sufficent reason for me not to get any other treasure for a while. =P next we find a dragon's lair, (i think here was where we wandered off the 'official' map down that section marked 'caves of the unknown'. so our dm started making up stuff.) after arguing wether a party of about 8 or 9 6-8th level pc's could take on a mature dragon, (and wonders be) wisdom actually prevailed, so we moved on.

next, we find this passageway that is blocked off by rubble, and the cleric has been finding these potions of gaseous form, so we use one and check out the far side of the passage. turns out that it opens into a room with six doors. who could resist? so we move enough rubble to crawl through. on the far side we start opening doors. after some experimentation, it is figured out that the rooms behind the doors are switching places every time a door is opened and closed. the only way to 'pin' a room down is to wedge the door open.

after getting hit by the same dart trap closet a few times we learn to stand clear of the door once it is opened. we also find a room with an erie greenish glow, with a pool in the middle. the pool appears to be water, but the bottom of the pool is this glowing green something. so, of course a few of the party jumps in for a swim. the two rouges and the ranger, if i recall correctly. and at least one of them goes down to the bottom to touch the glowey whatever-it-is.

another room/hall we find has these ranks of red and black candles on either side, which light upon opening the door, and something towards the very back of the area. we didn't get too good of a look. flashbacks of too many saturday morning kung fu specials running through my head, i'm freaking out and insisting that we run from this room, and fast. amazingly everyone agreed. and then the fateful room was discovered.

this room had three walls of different colors. red, blue and green. plus the stone wall in which the door was. someone touched the blue wall and promptly got sucked in. more experiments led to more sucking (haha). finally the cleric and i tossed a rope into the corner of two walls and the cleric got sucked into the green wall, while i managed to let go. so left all alone, i figured, 'what the hey,' and touched the red wall. *slurp*

we woke up an unknown (dm slipped up and mentioned something about an hour, heheh.) amount of time later and found that we had been altered. the cleric's potions of gaseous form were missing, but he could now turn into gaseous form a couple of times a week. some of the others could now generate lightning sparks at a short range for a moderate amount of damage, but couldn't wear anything metal. and my armor and helm were missing! (cry) or so i thought, until i tried to get up. and promptly fell over with a clatter. the armor had been fused with my skin. so i look normal, but my skin has most of the properties of my armor. fortunately the magic abilities of the helm still worked, so i used the silence ability to avoid clanking. i figured i could deal with the deafness.

sadly, we never continued much further from that point, as the rest of the group wound up getting interested in what remained of scout camp.... ^^ needless to say, that while i didn't get many merit badges that year, d&d forever after became a part of my life. =D

here is chapter two of his tale:

i am happy to report that the character's story continued even if that adventure did not. years later i decided to stop just fondly reminising about him, and brought him back. this time he shows up in rifts, having just been sucked through a random rift. struggling to adapt, he eventually finds his way into an order of mindknights. the nifty psiblade goes nicely with his armor-skin condition. he adventures for a few levels, going through the a.r.c.h.i.e. adventure and some other randomness.

then another completely unrelated character from rifts gets sucked into a d&d world, (gotta love random unstable rifts), he's a mind melter with a glitterboy that he picked up somewhere... unfortunately some elemental possibly cross-planar entity takes a liking to his suit and takes it from him. he's not real big into death, so he lets the exceedingly powerful being have it, if somewhat begrudgingly. after some assorted minor adventures we find a deck of many things, and low and behold he draws the 'gain a fighter ally' type card. guess who?

yup, good old fighter-mage, now mindknight, back from rifts! very happy to be back as well. again that particular adventure dies out a short time after that.... but now having established his return from rifts, he continues his adventures by wandering the world and finally into an oriental-type part of the world. he is following the road towards a town when overhead a blue dragon flys by, spooking his horse. heading right towards the town. a wounded blue dragon.... a town famous for it's healing spring.... did i mention that he happens to have a dragon-slaying sword keyed to blue dragons? next chapter: "how to take on a really big dragon 'single-handedly' and live to tell the tale!"

chapter 3!

where were we in our interesting tale... oh, yes. having finally gotten his horse under control, the intrepid hero continues heading towards the town. arriving some hours later, he secures lodging for his horse and himself and begins sounding out the surronding town. his efforts, however, tip his hand and soon a rumor is sweeping the town that he is planning on saving the town from the dragon singlehandedly!! needless to say, this was not quite his intention when he began asking questions about the dragon and the town's defenses and likely response. soon a crowd gathers and accosts him, proclaiming him their savior, and pleading for help from the dragon. the rather pretty girl with the scornful look in her eyes and a demeanor most negitive (who also happened to be one of the two town mages) had nothing to do with his acquesience.

really.

honestly.

okay, maybe a little to do with it. (sheesh. give a guy a break. so he wanted to prove her wrong. =P)

discovering that the other town mage was her mother and that the two of them were very much on the outs with each other didn't help much. especially after it came to light that the town was pretty much divided between thier two opinions. (good grief, now i've gotta mend a family, sway the two differening camps of thought into something ressembling agreement, and save the town from the dragon. all in a weeks work. aiya!)

so after a rather public request, which he felt he couldn't refuse, (thanks dm! =P ) he accepted upon condition of assistance from the town. which assistance would not be made a point of in front of the dragon. of course. some of the town figured that tithing to the dragon would not be too bad and didn't want to make it angry and revengeful, the other group wanted to kick it out back where it came from. i negotiated a deal where i would appear to represent the minority who wished to fight the dragon, and would challenge it to single combat. making it clear to the dragon that the majority of the town was against this, and figured to get rid of me and my noisy 'bad' influence by sending me off to fight with the dragon.... this more or less appeased the 'kiss up to the dragon' group. and of course, made the 'kill the dragon' group happy. so with that i begin gathering my 'assistance'.

figuring that my story of a disgruntled reactionary villager would not fly with my non-oriental features, i first requested some appropriate garb, as well as a make-over to make me look as close as possible with disguise efforts. layering on top of that a disguise self, and some practice with the accent was the best i could do in the week or two i had. (did i mention the dragon's deadline for a tribute from the town as a gesture of good faith?)

to be continued in part two of "how to kill a dragon single-handedly (almost)!"

chapter 4....

so i begin wandering around town getting errands done. here's what my to-do list might have looked like.

1) hire the weaponsmith to attach an ~3' steel pole to the hilt of my dragonslaying sword (blue) +2, such that it will be balanced somewhat forward of the middle of the new length. should end up with something like a modified longspear.

2) buy and have fitted some clothing typical of the local townspeople.

3) speak to the owner of the largest herd of cattle, and acquire two of them, with a double-yoke included. nice fat cattle, not scrawny little ones.

4) keep that daughter away from the mother! good grief they can argue.... send her on a 'diplomatic' mission to find an old veteran that still lives in the town and arrange for a meeting. show suitable respect!

4 & 1/2) not a to-do item per se, but discovered that the mother is not, in fact, a mage, but a cleric. and not just any cleric, but the high priestess of the local religion. to whom the healing pool in question belonged. putting a whole religious spin on the little family quarrel. lovely.

5) follow up on the weaponsmith, and see how it is coming along. finding that he is already finished, i commission the next item- a wide mouthed bell-shaped piece to be attached to the sword, surrounding the original hilt, and open at the bottom.

6) buy about a pound of loose unwoven carded cotton from the weaver.

7) go talk to the herdowner in person and convince him that, yes, this is really necessary for the salvation of the town, and wouldn't he rather give up two cattle instead of his whole herd to the dragon?

8 ) meet with the aformentioned veteran, and indicate that my sword is not going to be available to me, and would he happen to have a sword whose honor demands that it be carried into combat against this foe on his behalf? and would he be pleased to train me in how to use it properly? begin meeting with him for several hours each morning and evening.

9) send the daughter off on another errand (my, but she's cute when she's angry, *erhm* she sure is angry an awful lot!) this time to find a child who owns a toy wagon, and who would be willing to give it up for the purpose of slaying the dragon. we hold a solemn ceremony to paint the wagon with it's new dragonslaying colors. daughter seems impressed with how well i get along with children.

10) visit the leather worker to commission a custom harness made of straps. pick up some wicks and tallow from a nearby candlery, and some common lamp oil.

11) meeting with the mother to reassure her that, yes, i really do have an idea for how to slay the dragon. discover that she, like most somewhat estranged parents just want what is best for her daughter, was disappointed that she did not follow in her footsteps into the clergy-but persued what seemed to be a waste of time back then studying arcane arts... but now she just wants to be able to talk to her daughter again; doesn't know how to overcome her pride, or how to take back all the previous years of angry arguments. oh, and by the way, does this town have an alchemist?

12) meeting with the rest of the town council to convince them of my sanity and viable plan. propose that an order of celebration fireworks is put into the town alchemist, and the word spread about confidence in victory. planning for a celebration is begun. (as in, distract the suits so i can work, already!)

13) follow up on the smith again, this time to commission a tube about four feet long, hollow and completly open at one end with a hole in the seam about two handspans from the end, and a bulb at the far end, one side of the bulb flattened at an odd angle. on this tube are welded some handhold-like metal pegs all along it's length. several thinly beaten layers are welded around the assemblely for strength before the pegs are added. noting the nice thinly beaten layers, i ask him to add a few triangular blades to my highly modified sword just about where the hilt and the bell join. this appears to be able to be done by just under the deadline. i'm actually helping him forge the thing, acting as a mostly unskilled apprentice. daughter's expectations of the haughty stuck-up won't get his hands dirty hero seem to have been somewhat shattered.

14) visit the alchemist and convince him to part with some of the fireworks, along with handling instructions and assurances that i'm not interested in the secrets of making the fireworks, i'm just trying to get the dragon.

15) finding a child who is willing to give up a toy wagon, to help slay the dragon.

and so at long last i have gathered all the tools i need to successfully (i hope) slay the dragon.

(to be continued next time in chapter three: "how to (maybe) kill a dragon with a mastercard commercial." )

(ps: bonus points to anyone who actually figures out how i did it with the above mentioned stuff before my next post. )

Maelstrom

01-19-2008, 07:44 PM

Very interesting stories for that PC.

Ok, so he has a toy wagon, two work-capable cows with a yoke, a pound of cotton, a harness, lamp oil, candle wicks and tallow, and a veteran's sword.

In addition, a couple contraptions:
A dragonslayer sword mounted on a pole like a longspear. This has a bell shaped metal piece around the old hilt, and with a couple extra blades attached to it.

A hollow tube with metal pegs along its length.

From the above clues, I would guess that the sword/spear is going to be used like a lance. Because the cattle are considered sacrificial, I think they will be used as part of the attack. I further conjecture that the dragonslayer lance will be attached via the open tube and custom harness to the cattle.

I'm not sure about the rest... maybe the oil will be situated to douse the dragon as the lance skewers it, with the wicks set to the right length to be a fuse to start the oil on fire (being a blue, this dragon is not immune to fire).

Then cometh the mageknight to attempt to finish off the confused, burining, and heavily injured dragon.

Just a guess :)

upidstay

01-20-2008, 08:52 AM

The spear will be in the tube, attached to the custom yoke. Cattle will be sent forth in a mini stampede, skewering the dragon. They will be towing the little wagon, which will have the lamp oil covered by the wool, soaked in a little oil, with a few candles set in it to act as a primitive fuse. Did it work?

nijineko

01-21-2008, 11:35 AM

as promised, your commercial:

hiring a weaponsmith to make some radical modifications to your sword of (blue) dragonslaying +2: ~30gp.

traditional native garb with accompaning makeover: ~10gp 2sp.

a brace of cattle with yoke: ~35gp.

a pound of cotton: ~2gp.

hiring the leatherworker to make a custom leather harness: ~25gp.

tallow, wicks and some lamp oil: ~4gp.

hiring the smith to make a big hollow metal tube with a hole punched in the side a flat bottom and pegs welded to it: ~150gp.

buying some fireworks from the local alchemist: ~200gp.

training in how to walk, talk, act, and swordfight like a native: free, courtesy of fear of being eaten by a dragon.

the look on your dungeonmaster's face when: you open the fireworks, pour the almost all the powder down into the tube followed by the cotton, roll the leftover powder into the lampoil soaked wicks and coat them in tallow sealing the hole in the side with an improvised wick, placing the flat bottom on the child's wagon so that it will move freely with the oxen, attaching the tube with the leather harness to the yoke of oxen, having the local mage cast invisibility and the local cleric cast silence upon the whole contraption, and he suddenly realizes that you've managed to build a working cannon out of your dragonslaying sword right under his nose:

oh so very, very, priceless.

(next chapter in this tale, the recounting of the fight!)

(ps: to be fair, my character had been wandering the oriental setting for quite some time. i was surprised that my dm didn't twig to it when i started asking detailed questions about the setting, and availability of materials. and i happened to have just finished watching some post-apocalyptic dragon-slaying movie, which is what gave me the idea.)

Maelstrom

01-21-2008, 12:54 PM

Heh, its got some pizzaz... but wouldn't it have been easier to make a ballista bolt out of the dragonslayer sword? Would be easier to test to make sure it'd actually work and not blow up :).

tesral

01-21-2008, 07:17 PM

Recently the DM set 13 Orcs agaisnt a caravan with 5 PCs. The fight went badly. Raphael, my warkock, refusted to go quietly and when doing his level best to stop it didn't work he ran.

They didn't capture him, and the two orcs that tried to run him down got killed for their troubles. A third wounded Orc was walking back (He was on a runaway wagon) Raphael killed him as well.

Now equipped with better armor, but still wounded, he joined Kalita the Halfling Druid who also got away. The Orcs had the party trapped in the cellar of a ruined house.

We scoped the place out and I went up a tree that gave me a clear shot inside the building. A Eldrich blast a round kept most of the Orcs pinned down. Then I stopped. One less Orc when one stuck his head up. Kalita the Druid was meanwhile dealing with the Orcs trying to sneak out the back way. Fire and arrows.

Mean-meanwhile the party is in the basement trying to get out. They make friends with the half Orc the others are kicking around and came boiling out. Nearly loosing their heads to a blast that came roaring in.

Orcs are now chasing Kalita. As she runs past my tree Raphael grabs her and heads higher. Several Orcs tried to cut down the tree, they are losing an Orc a round to blasts. Three dead in three rounds and the remainder give that up and try to join the general melee at the house now firmly underway. That lasts not much longer with one Orc running for his life.

DrAwkward

01-22-2008, 02:44 PM

Recently the DM set 13 Orcs agaisnt a caravan with 5 PCs. The fight went badly. Raphael, my warkock, refusted to go quietly and when doing his level best to stop it didn't work he ran.

Warkock? I though they took an hour to recharge after every eldrich blast.:p

Seriously, though, Warlocks are one of my new favorite classes for extended combats. Had one pester the party not too long ago, in fact.

nijineko

01-28-2008, 08:21 AM

i was running this one game where i had a bunch of tribal types ambush the party with sleep poison darts and arrows. after a few rounds, everyone in the party had fallen prey to the poison... except for this one character. (i was generously allowing the character to roll the save for his horse, a mistake.) the orcs were less powerful than the party and knew it, so they wouldn't confront him directly, but stuck to ranged attacks.

well, there were tripwires too, but those were not too effective, as it turned out. in any case, he kept making passes back and forth wounding more and more of the tribals, and taking more hits, with more poison. however, and we still have trouble believing this, he made ~23 consecutive saving throws of increasing difficulty. (his horse finally failed the save, but he made is tumble check for landing safely...)

i finally gave it up and just declared that his character was immune to sleep poison. so he alone managed to escape and follow the tribal types back to where they held the rest of the characters prisoner. and promptly planned for how to release them.

we were all in stiches at the improbability of that streak of saving throws. even i could do nothing but laugh helplessly at the end.

Maelstrom

01-28-2008, 09:17 AM

Good luck gone awry :)

nijineko

02-02-2008, 02:07 PM

hey, i'm not mean-spirited. something like that should be rewarded! =D best laid plans, and all.

dentarthur

02-03-2008, 04:29 PM

This was two weeks after running from a castle inhabited by some sort of undead ruler and his minions. We've returned to the castle. As we approach the front gate, we see six Dreadguards standing guard. This is bad, as I've got no spells that can really hurt them, and our rogue can't sneak-attack them, leaving our one 3rd-level fighter -- who lost his swords in the last encounter -- as our main offense against these guys. Fighting may not quite be suicide, but it'll be painful.

Well, my sorceror just happens to be fond of illusion spells. And he knows what the castle's liege looks and sounds like. A quick Disguise Self later, I march straight up to the critters and stand before them, the spitting image of our unliving buddy. I cast Ghost Sound to be sure I get the voice just right.

"I command you to attack each other until no other Dreadguard is left standing."

There's nothing quite like watching your enemies reduce each other to piles of scrap metal at your bidding.

upidstay

02-04-2008, 06:18 AM

"There's nothing quite like watching your enemies reduce each other to piles of scrap metal at your bidding."
:D:D:D:D

That's brilliant!! I hope you got a little extra something for that one.

Maelstrom

02-04-2008, 03:03 PM

The only thing better than a well fought combat is a well avoided combat.

Nicely done!

upidstay

02-05-2008, 07:16 AM

Many moons ago, our group was fighting an Unholy warrior, a paladin of some evil god. Anyway, he was as chaotic evil as you can be, and really powerful. We had fought our way through his hordes of minions, past traps, monsters, etc. Our thief snuck up behind him while we distracted him by blunting his magic 2 handed sword with our bodies. The thief snuck up, unobserved and...

Put a Helm of Opposite Alignment on his head, making him a goody two shoes. None of us knew he was going to do it, was quite a surprise. The DM had to think about it for a few, to see what happened. It worked, he became Lawful Good, I believe.

nijineko

02-05-2008, 03:52 PM

just hope he doesn't get any scalp itch....

razada

02-06-2008, 02:51 PM

I was once in a low level (1-8) campaign and the party was composed of a gnome illusionist, a elan sorcerss who was deathly afraid of rabits (since a whole feral, dire tribe killed her hometown), a halfgiant half dwarf fighter/monk/ranger, and a elven druid.

we were hiking along a mountian pass because we were bored and wanted to go for a stroll, the campaign was going nowhere so we decided to force the gm to make a side story. we found a golbin cave full of baddies, we decimated them all and holed up in their little cave. at this point i will explain the gear we had.

The illusionist had a staff that held disguise self, host sound and silent image. a set of magic robes which protected him and a crossbow that stored spells.

the sorceress was over confident, having nothing than battle robes and a greatsword.

the halfgiant/dwarf was approx. 6ft tall, the joining between a giant and a dwarf was something out of a fairy tale, that is hated by both races and gets shuned from it's home. he had with him a pair of keen handaxes, alond with a fullblade and gauntlets of storm giant strength. he was set for battle.

the elven druid was a peacefull fellow, he like hikes, but this excursion into the cave he had no favor for. he was equipped with a staff of forest change, which allowed him direct communication with any plant life and the plants treated him as a hero. he had no offensive weapons at all.

as we rested in the cave the gnome and the halfgiant/dwarf decided since they had the best vision in darkness and the gnome could hide them if need be, they would adventure into the cave. they wandered for about 3 hours, becoming lost and they had no way to talk to their friends, fo some reason there was no plant life and the air became hot around them. a few more hours of adveturing and they encountered light, it was glden light being reflected off a pile of riches, but ontop of the pile was a slain red dragon and a slain black dragon. as the 2 adventurers entered this room they saw that the light came from a big hole in the cieling. the adventurers left at the camp got worried and decided to use the sorceress's spell message, to contact them. they had to exit and hike up the mountian by foot, they took their time to get their and found the ridge of the hole. as they were setting up the ropes to allow the 2 that were stuck down there to get up they fell. now all the adventurers are stuck in the treasure hoard.

they took a hour to come up with nothing. then a great flappin of wings broke our focus, as we all scurried to hide a great black dragon landed on the pile and started to fill containers of trewasure and flew off. we concluded that he won the fight and is just getting his spoils. so we decided to op in a containr he left and cover ourselves with treasure. the sorceress used tensers disk to make a barrier between us and the gold so we didnt get squished. time passed nad the dragon returned, grabbed us and flew away. we exited the container using the disk to carry the weight off us. and we were in a swamp lair. we quickly gott out of there. as we were exiting the swamps, running througt the trees the dragon spotted us and began chase.

he soared down to catch us but we dodged him breaking through the trees into a clearing just big enough for him to make a landing. the party ran up into the trees trying to protect themselves. the dragon landed and began its attack.

the druid used his staff to close the trees to make a wall. and as he began to tear it down i (the halfbreed) climbed into a very tall tree, i would guess about 20foot.he came i jumped and landed plunging my fullblade halfway into his back and ulled out my axes to get to work on the muscle that controlled his wings. in a few rounds his wings were diabled, and he had to fight againts the people in t he trees and me on his back. after a hour of table play i killed th dragon by hacking at it with one hand while holding on to the fullblade. i saved some of his blood bones and acid, and his skull.

nijineko

02-06-2008, 04:12 PM

well, guess 'cow'boy isn't quite the right word... ^^ bet you were sore the next morning!!!

razada

02-06-2008, 05:07 PM

i had been thrown off, breaking my wrist, the gm had to injure me, i was untouchable up there

DrAwkward

02-06-2008, 05:23 PM

Since Stride (one of my players) is lurking on the boards now, I thought I'd share his stories from the perspective of his Bard's evil kobold cohort, Okfur.

I warn you:
* It's in Blog reverse-cronology, I think. Okfur not so good with orginization.
* It's not suitable for work, small children, or anyone offended by profanity.
* I still can't read it without crying from laughter. Maybe you had to be there, but I think he gets his point across.

http://www.mercy-limited.com/okfur/2004_10_03_archive.html

Also, rummage around. I think its multiple pages.

nijineko

02-10-2008, 07:11 AM

* It's not suitable for work, small children, or anyone offended by profanity.

thanks for the tip. my wife claims that she has three kids, two little and one big. so i guess i qualify for the middle catagory there. ^^

tesral

02-10-2008, 11:01 PM

thanks for the tip. my wife claims that she has three kids, two little and one big. so i guess i qualify for the middle catagory there. ^^[/quote]

My wife bought me two boxes of minis today, and a Breyer Horse for herself. We have more toys than the average house with children.

nijineko

02-11-2008, 06:38 AM

well, if i didn't keep having to dump books.... ours would look like a branch library.

tesral

02-11-2008, 10:06 AM

well, if i didn't keep having to dump books.... ours would look like a branch library.

That too.

TSchmee

09-14-2009, 08:20 PM

My group was getting antsy with our current campaign, so I took over DMing and started a 3.5 game, and told the players they could make level 5 characters, with no restrictions as to race, class, etc.

One of the players made a Goliath Half-Dragon Barbarian (ECL +3) that was tearing apart anything I could throw at him. After about half the session, I decided it would be a good time to have the party meet a Wight.

3 hits of Energy Drain and the Barbarian fell.

Note: he rolled 3 critical failures in as many rounds of combat, so he was mostly dead anyways.

What WAS fun however, was when he rose up 4 rounds later as a wight himself. It took the rest of the party nearly dying to take him down again.

Let me tell you, letting the players build the most insane characters they can think of lets me be as evil as I want to the party. It is perhaps the most fun I've ever had DMing.

Handsomethrowrug

09-14-2009, 09:24 PM

My absolute favorite combat memory involves an Aboleth, a barbarian, and a rogue-fighter. The PCs were in a black dragon lair, hunting down one of the five aspects of Tiamat (another story for another time) when they came across a pool of acid. They had amulets that allowed them to swim through this acid, but they were just discovering this themselves.

The barbarian, true to form, leaps into the acid pool as soon as he has the slightest inkling that he is now immune to it. He has just enough time to turn around and look at the party when he gets suddenly pulled underwater (underacid?) and finds himself face to face with an Aboleth.

Not knowing what it is, and not caring, he begins his assault on the beast. The rogue-fighter, having witnessed this from the shore, is the only other one actually wearing his necklace, so he leaps in after the barbarian. In the very next round, the Aboleth hits the rogue-fighter with a tentacle, forcing him to make a will save or be dominated.

The rogue-fighter fails, of course, and immediately turns his attacks toward the barbarian.

Now, you must understand this barbarian. Were the word "barbarian" not so commonly used in D&D, I would use it to describe him now. He is by far the most barbaric barbarian I've ever seen. I hope you will understand my point after this.

The barbarian immediately stops caring about the Aboleth, who had so far been unable to do much of anything to him, and turns toward the rogue-fighter. With no hesitation what-so-ever, enraged by the betrayal, he reaches toward the rogue-fighter and makes a successful disarm attempt, thus ripping the amulet off him.

Immediately, of course, the rogue-fighter's body begins to sizzle in the acid. He starts to make a break for the surface, despite the pain, but then his bag dissolves. See, this rogue-fighter likes to carry alchemical elixirs. Alchemist's fire, sunrods, smokesticks, you name it. A LOT of them. He had over 40 alchemist's fires in his bag at the time. And what happens when those suddenly burst open under acid all at once?

BOOM.

The barbarian was the only one who made it out alive, untroubled by any of the events as usual.

Dr.Dead

11-27-2009, 07:29 PM

My favorite storie is when I just started a new character at lvl 1 Then we got in a ambush My little lvl 1 dwarf cleric held off a lvl 5 dude as the lvl 6 buddie of mine was having a hard time just trying to hold off a lvl 1 dude I guess its the luck of the dice. LOL!!!

nijineko

12-13-2011, 01:24 PM

i recall one story where the party archer managed to get an e-crit and rolled either a 66 or 00 which are the most lethal possible results on the crit charts, which roll resulted in the arrow severing the spine of a cave troll, felling it instantly. quite impressive.

my character followed up by using various ice effects on the catapults to foul them up, before having to run away from the catapult crews. all in all, we managed to successfully defend the fortress. partly because i insisted that we were going to be attacked that night, and decided to sleep on the other side of the river in enemy territory. sure enough, they decided to ambush us. my advance harassment of the enemies, and early warning enabled the fort to better defend itself.

now this was because i could just feel it as a player that it was going to happen. the setup was simply too good. it just screamed ambush to me. so when my dm took me aside afterwards and asked if he had given it away and how, i assured him he hadn't. then he wanted to know how i knew, and after hemming and hawing a bit, in a moment of inspiration, i claimed women's intuition on behalf of my character (i'm male, but the character was obviously female). ^^